Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas officially brought his request for Palestinian statehood to the United Nations on Friday, outlining his request to the General Assembly in New York.
The move is intended to bypass the peace process with Israel that has been stalled for over a year.
Almost immediately after Abbas finished, his Israeli counterpart offered a starkly different speech that seemed to reaffirm the challenge of reaching a lasting deal.
Abbas, who was greeted with sustained applause and a standing ovation when he arrived at the podium, formally submitted his request to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon moments before he began his speech late Friday morning.
"It is time for the Palestinian people to gain their freedom and independence, the time has come to end the suffering and the plight of millions of Palestinian refugees in the diaspora and the homeland," he said.
Less than an hour later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chastised the General Assembly and said he was seeking truth rather than applause.
"The truth is the Palestinians want a state without peace," he said, adding that the UN General Assembly has become a hall of "darkness" for his country.
Though Abbas said that the Palestinians are armed only with their "dreams," the Israeli prime minister said Palestinian militants have waged battle against his country with the help of international partners.
"Hopes, dreams -- and 10,000 missiles and Grad rockets supplied by Iran," Netanyahu said.
While the two leaders gave vastly different stances on the issue, both men used their speeches to outline the region's long history of acrimony.
Earlier, Abbas said the application he submitted calls for the Security Council to recognize Palestine as a full United Nations member defined by its pre-1967 borders.
Abbas said Israel's refusal to freeze settlement construction has been the major barrier to the advancement of negotiations.
He told the General Assembly that Israel has refused to negotiate in good faith with the Palestinians while at the same time "frantically" building settlements "on the territory of the future state of Palestine."
Over the past 18 years, the number of Jews living in the West Bank and east Jerusalem has nearly doubled to 500,000 people.
Abbas also warned that his government could collapse if Israel continues building settlements on lands within the Palestinian territories.
The U.S., along with Canada and a number of other countries, had attempted to convince Abbas to abandon his plan. U.S. President Barack Obama said this week there could be no "shortcuts" to peace in the region and urged both Israel and the Palestinians to work out a deal among themselves.
Abbas wasn't persuaded, telling supporters at a New York hotel Thursday night that he was going ahead with his plan to bring the application to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
"We seek to achieve our right and we want our independent state," Abbas said.
The Palestinians need nine votes from the 15-member UN Security Council for their application to pass. But even then, the U.S. has said it would use its veto power to shut down the bid.
The Palestinians are currently listed as a permanent observer at the UN.
Khaled Elgindy, a former adviser to the Palestinian leadership and a visiting fellow at the Brooking Institution think tank, said even though the bid will likely fail, it's changing the "power dynamic" between Israel, the Palestinians and other countries involved with the peace process.
"The negotiations have been going on for almost 20 years," he told CTV's Power Play on Thursday.
"What the Palestinians have said is, ‘We can't wait anymore," he added. "This is an attempt to sort of unstick the process."
The move in New York has put the Palestinians in conflict with the U.S., but it has also put Obama in a difficult position. Obama has publicly stated his support for a two-state solution in the region, but so far there has been little or no progress on that front.
Obama now runs the risk of appearing to backtrack on his position if he outright rejects the Palestinians' bid to achieve the statehood he has said he supports.
Obama also risks damaging important relations in the Arab world at a time of political turmoil in the region, said CTV's Washington Bureau Chief Paul Workman.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians risk alienating themselves from the U.S., which could impede their ability to move forward in negotiations with Israel.
"The U.S. has been their patron," Workman said. "They've helped them prepare their people for statehood, they've worked with the Israelis, they've been the broker in all of this so if the Palestinians lose the support of the Americans that will hurt them."
Workman said it could take weeks or even months for the Security Council to vote on the application.
The resumption of talks between Israel and the Palestinians appears increasingly unlikely. The Palestinians have demanded that Israel halt settlement construction and use pre-1967 borders as a basis for negotiating future borders.
Israel, for its part, opposes the pre-1967 caveat, insists that there be no preconditions to negotiations and has demanded that the Palestinians officially recognize Israel's right to exist.
While the Palestinians maintain they have gone to the UN out of frustration with nearly two decades of unfruitful talks, Israel says the move is actually a strategy to avoid those talks.
With files from The Associated Press
